


And We Go Sailing

by statikos



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3064712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statikos/pseuds/statikos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot has changed for Merrill since she stowed away on Isabela's ship. Most notably, the ground moves a lot. And what <i>are</i> sea legs, anyway?</p><p>[Request for Simone!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Go Sailing

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request for dear Simone, and one I was all too happy to write! :) I mean, pirate lesbians? How could I say no? I've never written these two before so it was a bit experimental, but fun all the same!
> 
> Simone is working on a full-length, chaptered fic in this setting if you are interested; I was allowed to use some of her notes in order to write this. I'll add a link here when she posts it herself, but she was happy for me to put this up for now. :)

There are a lot of things about sailing that she still isn’t used to, even after all this time.

The ground ought not _move_ so much, for one. What sort of ground does that? Ground is meant to be still and sturdy and safe to stand on—well, mostly, anyway. Then again, it isn’t _really_ ground; everything’s made out of wood, which she still gets splinters from sometimes, and then underneath it all is the vast ocean. Sometimes Merrill still glances overboard and feels like a tiny crumb about to be washed down a huge, gaping throat in a flurry of saltwater. The ocean just seems so _hungry_ , so alive and careless and powerful, almost like—almost like—

“You’re not throwing up again, are you, Kitten?”

Merrill turns toward the familiar voice, holding tighter to the edge of the ship just in case. She shakes her head firmly. “I wasn’t. I don’t… any more.”

Isabela laughs and leans down onto the railing beside her. “I knew you’d find your sea legs soon enough. Good for you.”

“I’ve already got legs.” Merrill steps back from the rail and looks down herself to examine them. “Is there something wrong with them?”

“No,” says Isabela, quickly. She seems to be examining them as well, casting her gaze up and down slowly, though she looks just a _little_ sheepish as she finally averts her eyes. “No, there is not.”

“Ah, that’s a relief.” Merrill flops back down beside her with a sigh. Laughing, Isabela throws her arm around her shoulders.

“You need to learn not to take me so seriously, Kitten. With the crew it’s another matter, but if it’s just us, then you _can_ relax.” She hesitates. Slowly, she takes her arm from around her shoulders and folds it on the railing with her other one, fidgeting slightly. “Can’t you?”

“I…” Merrill thinks about it. “I-I can. It’s just… none of it’s quite what I expected.”

Isabela laughs again, the wind whipping her hair around her face. Just that’s enough to make Merrill’s cheeks flush faintly. “No shit?”

She scrunches her nose. “I just thought it would be—oh, I don’t know—cleaner, maybe? And I lived by the sea before but I just never knew how _noisy_ it was, up so close and all, and there’s those mean gulls that steal my sandwiches, like the ones on the Wounded Coast but they’re _big_ and—”

“—and there’s the sea monsters, of course. Can’t go a step without tripping over one of those blasted sea monsters.” Isabela smirks, but her expression softens slowly. “I… I didn’t mean for it, you know. I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I never asked you. It’s not my fault Varric snitched on me.”

“Well, I’m glad he snitched on you!” Merrill says, indignant. “You wouldn’t have even said goodbye. And I wouldn’t have gotten to—”

“Shh, Kitten. I know. I know.” Seeing Isabela of all people look _shy_ is still an unusual sight indeed; but Merrill’s always liked to watch people when they get like this. First it had been Fenris turning all gooey if Hawke so much as smiled at him, and then even stoic Aveline had started to lose composure around her future husband. She hadn’t expected to learn what it felt like but, more than that, she hadn’t expected someone to feel that way about _her_. Without thinking, she lets out a long sigh. Isabela looks at her. “Oh, no. What’s that for?”

“It’s nothing,” she giggles, “I was just thinking about your face.”

Isabela shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “It’s right here if you want to do something about it.”

Merrill never really knows what to do when she talks like that. There’s this playful lilt in her voice, like perhaps it’s all a joke; a tone she’s heard so many times before. Merrill learned even back in Kirkwall that sometimes Isabela liked to make fun because the alternative was to feel sad or even guilty about something that she couldn’t do anything about. When she does it in this sort of situation, though, she doesn’t get it. Of course Merrill wants to look at her face, or touch it and maybe even kiss it. Why would she be afraid that she wouldn’t? She smiles, pressing her lips to her cheek. If Isabela _is_ worried about something like that, it’s just silly.

Of course, no sooner has she started to feel pleased with herself than Isabela smiles at her again and she feels she has enough butterflies in her stomach to carry her into the air.

“Come with me,” she says, and Merrill just nods dizzily.

Isabela takes her hand and leads her away from the railing, back toward the mainmast. The sails look so small when they’re furled away, flopping slightly rather than billowing majestically in the evening wind, but the mast itself always looks taller than ever, like a great tree with bare branches. Merrill would have liked to climb it if things hadn’t been quite so wobbly. Maybe in the next port... but even as she thinks it, Isabela is getting her footing on the shrouds and holding out her hand to beckon her. Merrill swallows, hard, and nervously takes hold of the netting beside her.

Then they climb. Isabela moves so easily, adjusting effortlessly with each of the ship’s gentle motions, while Merrill is… decidedly less graceful. She’s climbed trees before, even when it was windy, but the netting is always less solid than she expects it to be so each step is lightly punctuated by a pause as she makes sure it will take her weight after all.

At first she thinks it must be awfully annoying for Isabela. Then she sees that each time she falls behind, Isabela crouches down where she is in the shroud, holding on with just one hand and watching her with a smile. Perhaps she climbs a little faster once she notices that, or perhaps it’s just that she can see the crow’s nest getting closer and closer and solid wood seems much, _much_ safer to stand on than rope. Isabela helps her into the nest once she finally makes it.

“You’ve never been up here before, right?”

Merrill opens her mouth to answer, but her jaw ends up simply hanging. From this height, the sea doesn’t look dark and dangerous any more; in the setting sun it’s gold and orange and even pink, with little white glimmers darting across its surface. The wind is stronger, but more invigorating, and if it’s cold she doesn’t know because just then Isabela moves up behind her and wraps her arms around her middle, leaning her head on top of hers.

“Even the sea looks smaller from up here. I thought you’d feel a bit better if you saw things from this angle.”

Merrill’s still speechless as Isabela presses the spyglass into her hand. Then it hits her. “O-oh! Isn’t there supposed to be a lookout?”

“We’re in the middle of changeover. And I said _I_ wanted to come up here, just for a bit. I thought I might try training a _new_ lookout.”

“Me? Are you sure? I’m still not very good at climbing the ropes, and I wouldn’t know the first thing—but…” Isabela presses a kiss into her hair, and she fidgets. “But, if you think I could do it, well, I don’t know if you should, b-but I’d like to try if—if you think I can.”

“I think you can,” says Isabela, simply, and guides her hand with the spyglass to her face. “You’ve come this far, haven’t you?”

“But it’s such a big responsibility and all—looking out for things that you might bump into, and if I didn’t see one and you did, then that would be just—”

“Kitten. _Merrill_.” Isabela lets go of her hands and takes hold of her shoulders instead, turning her around to face her. “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t suggest it. And I trust you more than anyone on this ship.”

Merrill’s eyes cast downward. “Anyone?”

Isabela cups her chin and leans down to kiss her forehead softly. Merrill closes her eyes and waits for the answer.

“More than _anyone_. Ever.”

The ground still moves and the sea is still deep and hungry, but Merrill always seems to find her sealegs easier after that.


End file.
